Climate Law Blog

On September 14, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division II, ruled that a trial court decision to release climate scientists’ emails had improperly ignored an Arizona statutory protection for university records.  In this case, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (“E&E Legal”) has been attempting to use open records laws to obtain a 13 year […]

By Dena Adler It has been widely reported that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma inundated industrial plants, wastewater treatment plants, and Superfund sites, causing a stew of toxic chemicals and sewage to leak into floodwaters and releasing almost 1 million pounds of seven deadly pollutants into the air. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for instance, has […]

By Michael Burger This past July, three local governments in California filed three different lawsuits in California state courts, claiming that the extraction, promotion, and sale of fossil fuels by a group of oil, gas, and coal companies constituted torts under a number of different state common law theories. (I previously discussed the lawsuits here.) […]

On August 21, the federal District Court for the District of Columbia upheld the decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to withhold NOAA climate scientists’ research documents from release to the conservative group Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch sought to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) – which allows citizens to request […]

By Jessica Wentz This week, federal courts issued decisions on two cases involving questions pertaining to the scope of environmental review for fossil fuel production and transportation projects. Among other things, these cases examined the extent to which agencies had complied with obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to examine the indirect and […]

Jessica Wentz and Susan Biniaz Earlier this week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a 2015 EPA rulemaking aimed at phasing out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a potent class of greenhouse gas emissions which were introduced as a substitute for ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in the 1990s (Mexchem Fluor, Inc. v. […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP (APKS) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate at gmail dot com. In June, the Sabin Center, in […]

By Peter Ross For decades, federal energy and water efficiency standards have demonstrably saved consumers money, reduced pollution, and increased grid reliability.  The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) periodically reviews standards and test procedures for more than 60 products, representing about 90% of home energy use, 60% of commercial building energy use, and 30% of […]

By Michael Burger Yesterday, three local governments in California (San Mateo County, Marin County and the City of Imperial Beach) filed potentially groundbreaking climate change lawsuits in California state courts, each one charging a group of 20 fossil fuel companies with liability for public nuisance, failure to warn, design defect, private nuisance, negligence, and trespass. […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP (APKS) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate at gmail dot com. In June, the Sabin Center, in […]